


Playing Catch Up

by ImitationDorothyGale



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 22:38:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16168268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImitationDorothyGale/pseuds/ImitationDorothyGale
Summary: He, a prince of Katolis, and her, a moonshadow elf. Friends. What a funny thing life could be.





	Playing Catch Up

It took some tilting of the sketchbook to catch the fading light of the dying fire, but Callum wanted to get a sketch of the valley below the Cursed Caldera in all its glory before they moved on to continue to Xadia in the morning. Almost there…

“What’re you sketching this time?” a thickly accented voice said from behind him, causing him to jump and smudge his work. Callum looked up to see Rayla standing behind him, hands loosely behind her back. He had never quite forgotten that she was an elven assassin by training, but it was unsettling moments like these that brought that knowledge back in to full force.

“The valley of the Caldera in the moonlight. It’s a decent landscape sketch,” he said, turning back to his sketchbook as she took a seat beside him. “Honestly, Rayla, I know you were trained for stealth or whatever, but you really shouldn’t sneak up on a guy like that. I’d like to not die of a heart attack before I turn fifteen.”

“And how many more years before that happens?” she said teasingly.

He slammed his sketchbook shut and faced her, indignant. “In two months!”

“Oh, so you’re fourteen and three quarters. I thought you were thirteen, at the oldest,” she said, smirking at him.

“Five-sixths!” he said, voice raising to a shout. Rayla shushed him, jerking her head to indicate where Ezran, Bait, Ellis, and Zym were fast asleep on Ava. “Besides, you can’t be that much older than me,” he continued, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“I’m fifteen already,” she said proudly, leaning towards him as if to rub it in. “I’ll be sixteen in July.”

“Oh yeah? July what?” he said, leaning towards her in turn. Rayla found that she didn’t like the sound of a challenge in his voice.

“Thirty-first,” she said suspiciously.

“Then there’s two weeks where we’ll be the same age, because mine’s the fifteenth of July,” he boasted.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, you better enjoy it while you can, because then you’ll spend the rest of the year playing catch up,” she said.

“Oh, I intend to,” he said, clearly miffed that she had won this verbal sparring match. But then the air in the space between them changed, the tension broke, and they were quiet for a moment. How had they come this far, from the failed elven assassin and the second-best step-prince, representing two sides of an unfair war, to something almost resembling friends? He was the first to sit back, if only to take in all that had changed in a very short period of time. He, a prince of Katolis, and her, a moonshadow elf. Friends. What a funny thing life could be.

“What?” she said, tilting her head at him.

He thought about telling her what he was thinking, but thought better of it and opened his sketchbook to a fresh page instead. “Nothing,” he said, picking a pencil back up and beginning a new sketch. “Tell me more about what Xadia is like. I want to know what it’s like from someone who grew up there, just so I know what we’re really up against,” he said.

She smiled, a rare sight with Rayla, so Callum would take whatever he could get. “It’s like… magic pours out of the land as far as the eye can see.”

The next morning, as they were heading down the mountain, Rayla insisted on taking another rough path, so as not to be caught by the villagers. She, of course, was several hundred yards ahead of the rest of the group, being used to rough terrain.

“Come on, hurry up. I don’t want to have to stop every few miles just because you humans can’t keep apace!” she shouted up. Zym, already flying at less than a day old, did a few loop-the-loops in the air, before barreling down to Rayla and flying around her, which made her laugh.

“Zym! Wait up!” Ezran called, running down the mountainside beside Ava and Ellis, Bait bouncing in his pack.

“I’m not waiting on you to catch up, Callum! Let’s go!” Rayla called.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he replied, sliding down the slope of snow and careful to not get his pack wet. As he joined his friends, he thought of the new sketch in his book. One of a step-prince and a moonshadow elf talking, like two old friends playing catch up.


End file.
